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Fancy Schmancy

After spending 2 weeks in Toronto with Nagyi and Papo, we hopped back on another airplane (#3 of the summer, Clara will tell you, she's keeping count) to head to Halifax. We are spending 3 weeks here at Granny and Grandad's, then we'll be heading back to Toronto for another week before going 'home' again to Budapest. (An aside: I guess it feels most like 'home' now, since it's our own little family home. Chloe's never lived anywhere else, and Clara doesn't remember living anywhere else.)

Unfortunately for us girls, the very next day after we arrived here, Andras had to leave VERY early in the morning to fly to Miami for a conference. It's unfortunate for us, as we miss him, of course. But it's fortunate for him as he's getting to go to a fantastic IB conference on international education at a VERY fancy hotel right on the beach (it's called 'Fontainbleu' if you want to check it out), in a very fancy 'junior suite' with beach view balcony - poor him!

And the best part is that the keynote speaker at the conference is Greg Mortenson - the author of 'Three Cups of Tea'! I'm soooo envious that he got to go and not me!! (Especially since I'm the one who read the book and raved about it to him months ago, trying to get him to read it too, and he just started reading it on the plane to Miami!) Plus, unexpectedly, Greg Mortenson brought his friend along to speak too - Khaled Hosseini - the author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns! How cool is that?!

Anyway, while he's off enjoying the sun, surf, sand, and mental stimulation, the girls and I have been doing kid stuff. We took Clara to the public library (her first library experience I realised!) to see a puppet show and look at books (surprisingly, she wasn't as excited about the books as I thought she'd be - she was more into the ride-on toy in the kids' section - go figure, I guess she's normal after all!). Clara wasn't quite sure about the puppet show, I think, as there was a monster in it, but Chloe was really interested in it and didn't take her eyes off the puppets.

We've also just been hanging out at home, going to the playground, shopping, etc., but today we had a 'fancy' tea party for Clara. She's been talking about tea parties since I went to a couple this spring 'for Mummies only' and since she started her addiction to Mary Poppins. So she had requested having a tea party on the ceiling (like in Mary Poppins). Well, we had to use our imaginations for the ceiling part, but we did have a fancy 'girls only' tea party this morning. Clara, Mummy, Granny, Auntie Kate, Great Aunt Carol, Carroll Coffill, Stephanie Coffill, and Teri-Anne (Uncle Ucky's new girlfriend) all came (and Chloe popped in for a bit between naps). Everyone had to dress up and wear a fancy hat (except Clara didn't want to wear hers in the end! ha!), and we ate fancy little sandwiches, very fancy cookies, and watermelon cubes, and drank fancy tea in fancy teacups. Quite appropriately, Carroll Coffill even brought a 'Fancy Nancy' book for Clara.

Great Aunt Carol, Granny, and Clara

Granny and Clara

Stephanie, Clara, and Auntie Kate

All the 'ladies' at the fancy tea party

Teri-Anne and Mummy

Carroll and Carol

Then Clara went off to tramp around the garden in her fancy fairy princess dress. After the tea party guests left, we changed into swimsuits and went down to the lake for a while. It was a good day all round.

Clara being pushed around in the boat by Teri-Anne

Uncle Ucky (Alex) and Clara swimming in the lake

Granny and Chloe observing

Clara, Uncle Marc, and Ucky relaxing on the dock

Auntie Kate and Cooper enjoying a cold beer and a wet snuggle!

Chloe found Cooper (Auntie Kate and Uncle Marc's dog) very amusing!

Daddy will be back on Monday, so we are all looking forward to having him with us. 'Girls only' is fun, but it's more fun to have Daddy here too.

Our 5th Anniversary

Well, although I had gotten my days all mixed up this week (I thought Wednesday was the 9th for some reason, and Tuesday the 8th, and so on, which resulted in us accidentally celebrating our anniversary and Chloe's 4 month birthday each two days ahead of their real dates! oops!), Andras and I did make it out tonight for (another) anniversary dinner.

It turned out great, actually, as on our first run we had made reservations at Merlot, a restaurant we used to go to as a treat before we were married, then planned to go hang out at the bookstore that we used to walk to often in the evenings. But then we had a mini-blackout here in Toronto and the restaurant had to close. We ended up going to another place, Queen's Pasta (also nice, we went there for our first Valentine's Day - actually I think the only Valentine's Day we ever celebrated!), and then we got turned away at the bookstore as it was just about to close when we arrived. So although we had had a nice evening out, we were a bit disappointed that it didn't go as planned.

Anyway, this time round we did make it to Merlot and had a fabulous dinner (they have wonderful French cuisine! We highly recommend it), so we were very happy. Andras had homemade pate and a lamb shank, while I had a warm goat cheese and roasted pepper salad and the chicken breast. We shared an orange chocolate mousse for dessert. Oh, and drank some French Merlot, of course! :-)

Thanks to Nagyi and Papo for their babysitting services so we could celebrate - twice!

Back to the Blog

Ok, I'm trying again with this. I've been trying out Shutterfly for a family website, but I'm not sure I like it. Trying this again to compare. So I'm backtracking a bit and stealing posts from the Shutterfly site...

Anyway we are here in Toronto enjoying (mostly) the sweltering heatwave here. I believe today is a bit cooler - only 34 degrees C! Thank goodness for the pool at Nagyi and Papo's house! Clara is getting lots of swimming in.

Chloe isn't enjoying the heat so much and can't go in the pool as it's a bit cool for her, but we are making her her own little 'pool' with the baby bath. We fill it up from the hose in the morning, then leave it in the sun. By the afternoon it's a lovely warm outdoor bath, nice to cool her off a bit without being too cold.

This afternoon we're off to have dinner at Ildiko and Attila's. Looking forward to spending the evening on their beautiful back deck, and no doubt enjoying a delicious meal.